3. Charlie #3
A laugh bubbled up before I could stop it. “You’ve got to be kidding me. We’ve come all this way. All the way down here. Past that bloody tractor. Down those nightmare lanes. And there’s nobody home?”
Brad pressed the button a third time, as if sheer persistence might conjure a response.
“Gerald didn’t think to ring ahead?” I continued. “Make sure the client would actually be here? Or did he just assume the ghosts would let us in?”
“The email confirmation he forwarded said today—”
“Oh, well, if the email said so.”
Brad’s shoulders tensed. Then he stepped back from the intercom, planted his feet, and bellowed through the gates.
“HELLO?!”
His voice boomed across the courtyard, echoing off the stone walls of the manor. Loud enough to wake the dead. Tee-hee.
We both pressed our faces to the cold iron bars, peering through the gaps.
The manor stared back, blank and silent. Windows like dark eyes. The missing roof tiles gave it the appearance of something half eaten, slowly being consumed by time and neglect.
The gardens were a complete disaster. What had probably once been manicured lawns now grew wild, grass reaching knee height in places.
Flowerbeds had transformed into tangles of brambles and nettles.
A stone fountain sat dry and cracked in the centre of the courtyard, its cherub statue missing both arms and most of its face.
“There’s got to be someone—” Brad started.
Movement.
A curtain twitched in one of the downstairs windows. Just a flicker, barely perceptible. But definitely movement.
“Did you see that?” I whispered.
“Yeah.”
A pale shape appeared behind the glass. A face, ghostly white, there and gone so quickly I almost doubted I’d seen it at all.
My heart kicked into overdrive. It was just the homeowner. A very pale homeowner. Obviously. Someone who’d heard Brad’s shouting and come to check.
Except they hadn’t opened the door.
The manor remained still. No movement at the entrance. No sound of footsteps approaching.
“Hello?” Brad called again, though quieter this time. “We’re from ExorSquad. We’re here about—”
The curtain twitched again. Same window. But this time the face pressed closer to the glass, features clearer. Pale. Too pale. And the eyes—
Christ, were they… hollow?!
My mouth went dry. Neither of us moved. Had Brad also stopped breathing?
The face remained there, motionless now. Watching. The longer I stared, the more wrong it looked. The proportions weren’t quite right. The head too large. The neck too thin. And those eyes…
I blinked hard. When I opened them again, the face had shifted. Closer to the glass. So close I could make out individual features now—
Something brushed my shoulder.
Fingers clamped down. Hard. Vicious grip, fingers digging in through my jacket like talons.
I jerked sideways with a strangled yelp, my spine hitting the stone column with a thud as my pulse roared in my ears.
Brad had grabbed me. Brad. Not the thing in the window. Not some ghost. Just Brad, his face twisted in concentration as he—
He made this weird grunt-swipe motion with his other hand, brushing frantically at my shoulder.
Then I saw it.
Eight legs. Fat, bulbous body. Dark and hairy and wrong.
A spider. A massive spider that had been crawling across my shoulder and now tumbled through the air in a graceful arc before disappearing into the long grass.
The world tilted.
My skin erupted in a thousand phantom touches. Every nerve ending screamed that there were more. More on my back. More in my hair. Crawling up my neck. Under my collar. I could feel them—legs, so many legs, skittering across my skin even though I knew, knew they weren’t there.
I thrashed backward, slamming into the gate this time, the clang reverberating through the courtyard. My hands clawed at my jacket. Got to get it off. Got to check. Got to—
“Get it off! Get it off!” The words came out high and tight.
“It’s gone, mate. It’s—”
“Check! Just check!”
I spun around, yanking at my jacket collar, twisting to see my own back like a dog chasing its tail. My hands shook. Everything shook.
Brad burst out laughing.
Proper belly laughs that doubled him over. He braced his hands on his knees, shoulders heaving.
“Oh my God,” he wheezed. “Your face! You should see your face!”
Vicious heat flooded my cheeks. Then my throat. Then my entire body, until it felt like it was burning from the inside out.
“It’s not funny!”
“It absolutely is.” Another wave of laughter. “All that! Over a bloody spider!”
My hands curled into fists. The urge to punch him right in his smug, grinning face surged up so strong I had to lock my elbows to keep from acting on it.
Breathe. Just breathe.
I forced my shoulders down. Unclenched my jaw with effort. Shoved my hands in my pockets so he wouldn’t see them trembling.
“Yeah. Hilarious. You’re a regular comedian.”
Brad wiped his eyes, still grinning. “Sorry, sorry. But come on. It was tiny.”
“It wasn’t tiny!”
“Size of my thumbnail, max.”
“It was huge.”
“Sure, Chaz. A proper monster. At least twice the size of your di—”
A sound cut through the air.
A long, drawn-out creak. Metal on metal. Old hinges protesting movement.
We both turned.
The manor’s front door swung open with a groaning protest that belonged in a horror film.
Slow. Deliberate. Like something was savouring the moment.
A man stepped out.
Fifties, maybe? Dark hair swept back from a high forehead. He wore a charcoal suit that looked expensive—proper tailoring, with surgeon’s cuffs and a waistcoat. Completely incongruous with the decaying manor house behind him.
He closed the door with care and began walking down the gravel path towards us.
Slowly. Far too slowly.
Each step measured and precise, gravel crunching under polished Oxford shoes.
“Any time today would be nice,” I muttered.
Brad said nothing.
The man finally reached the gates. His hair showed silver at the temples, giving him that distinguished look rich people seemed to cultivate effortlessly. Though, up close, the slight grey stubble on his jaw suggested he’d skipped shaving this morning.
He pulled a key from his pocket and unlocked the padlock. The chain rattled as it fell away, and he pushed one gate open with a grunt of effort. It swung wide with another theatrical creak.
“Harrison Lancaster.” His voice carried the crisp edges of expensive education. He didn’t offer his hand. “You’re the ExorSquad people?”
“That’s us, mate.” Brad stepped forward, all confidence and easy smiles. “Brad Harrington. This is Charlie Hayes. We’re here to sort out your ghost problem.”
Harrison’s expression didn’t change. He looked us over with the sort of assessment usually reserved for dubious purchases—like he was deciding whether we were worth the money he’d spent.
“My wife, Evelyn, is in the kitchen, making notes for the workmen.” He stepped aside to let us through the gates. “If we can ever find workmen who aren’t useless piles of shit.”
Brad cleared his throat. “Yeah, we heard they’ve been refusing to come back.”
Harrison rolled his eyes. A proper eye roll, housing an immense amount of accumulated frustration.
“That’s putting it mildly. The moment anything goes wrong—a creaky floorboard, a loose tile—they’re off like startled rabbits.
Listen. To be clear, I don’t believe in any of this.
” His hand waved between us and the house.
“This entire exercise is to make Evelyn happy.”
Right. Of course. Dropping six thousand pounds on something he doesn’t believe in. Makes sense.
“Let’s go inside,” Harrison said, already turning towards the house.
Brad jogged back to his Focus. The engine coughed to life, and he pulled the car through the gates, parking it in the courtyard near that sad, broken fountain. Personally, I’d have left the car on the other side of the gate, but apparently Brad wanted it closer to this architectural nightmare.
I grabbed my bag from the boot—a battered rucksack that had seen better days—and slung it over my shoulder. Brad hauled out a massive wheeled case, like the ones people took on month-long holidays, not weekend ghost hunts. But supposedly he had all our “equipment.”
We followed Harrison down the gravel path towards the manor’s entrance.
“When did you buy the place?” I asked, my trainers crunching on the stone.
“Six months ago.” Harrison’s voice turned bitter. “Biggest regret of my life.”
“It’s, uh, quite a property.”
“It’s a money pit.” He glanced back at us.
“My wife and I own a chain of luxury resorts. Boutique hotels, primarily. This was meant to be our next one—Grimthorne Manor Spa and Resort. Period features combined with modern amenities. The works.” He gestured at the crumbling facade.
“Honestly, it was Evelyn’s idea. She’s always had a soft spot for old buildings with stories.
As for me? I just saw a huge renovation job that needed doing.
And I was right. It’s turning into a financial black hole, especially now the locals are refusing to work on it. ”
“Must be rough,” Brad said, and I could hear the shift in his voice. Interest. Probably calculating how to angle for a free stay somewhere. “I’ve always been interested in the hospitality industry.”
We reached the entrance.
The door loomed above us, solid oak darkened with age. The brass handle had turned green with verdigris. Harrison pushed it open—less dramatic creaking this time—and we stepped inside.
The smell hit me first. Mildew and old stone and something else—something slightly sweet and rotten that made my stomach turn.
The entrance hall stretched out before us, grand and utterly desolate.
Black and white chequered marble floor, dulled by a film of dust and grit.
A massive staircase swept upward to our right, its bannister ornately carved but missing several balusters.
The walls showed violent patches of damp and peeling wallpaper.